Remote Data Storage Platforms (RDSP) are a large pool of easily usable and accessible virtualized resources. The core idea in a RDSP environment is that a user stores his personal files in a RDSP, and can retrieve them irrespective of time and geographical barriers. The storage provider in RDSP thus provides its Clients (which typically include corporates and conglomerates) to store their business or any other data with a third party possibly in an unknown location. However, after the usage of the storage provided by the RDSP the owner of the data “vacates” his provided space in the RDSP. This space may be further allocated to some other user. For security and privacy concerns the owner of the data may wish to completely destroy his data stored in the RDSP before vacating the space. Post the storage period the client will have concerns about the state of the data he leaves with the storage provider—if the data is not shredded there is a possibility of it being used for malicious purposes. Though there are many data shredding methods that are developed for destruction of data at local storages there is still a necessity to develop a secure and robust data destruction algorithms in RDSPs. Such platforms are different from local data storages in the sense that the owner of the data does not possess any physical access to the data at the RDSP.
The few methods that are developed for data destruction at RDSPs suffer from many drawbacks. An RDSP being in physical access to the data can easily backtrack any of the update operations and build a good copy of the owner's data even after data destruction by these methods. Also these data destruction methods do not take into consideration the possibility of the RDSP taking an initial copy or making mirror images of the data and thereby using the data for malicious purposes. Hence there is a necessity for secure data destruction methods in RDSPs.